


Spinning, and far away

by Silberias



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, King Stannis, Older Man/Younger Woman, Robb and Catelyn plot, Slow Burn, betrothals for everyone!, i mean the very slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: A single straggler makes their way to Robb Stark's camp, bearing news of Lord Eddard's last days. What the man has to say changes Robb's course in the war forever as he chooses to offer the hand of his sister, Sansa, to Stannis Baratheon--the man Lord Eddard named King of the Seven Kingdoms. 
There are only a couple of problems with that, of course. Stannis is married and Sansa is a captive of the Iron Throne.





	1. The Grey Letter

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to BlueCichlid, without whom this story would have fizzled and died unwritten. She has been such an involved and wonderful person to work with on this project, I give her such heartfelt thanks for everything she has done so far. TommyGinger and Sarah_Black also for their encouragement when I first had the idea!

King Stannis the first of his name of the House Baratheon by the grace of the old gods and the new, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First men, Lord of Dragonstone, and Protector of the Realm.

 

My heart is heavy as I write today. As you know my father Lord Eddard is dead.   I am Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.   I did not expect this burden to fall on me for many years.  

 

My bannermen would name me King in the North.  They urge me to take the crown of the Kings of Winter and declare our independence.  Given the murder of my father, I must confess I was tempted.  But I have received news that gives me pause.  A survivor of my father’s household has returned to me, and I have learned much of my father’s last days and the events that lead to his end.

 

My father, as Hand of the King, learned a terrible truth.  There were no trueborn children to your brother’s marriage to Queen Cersei.  The false king Joffrey was born of incest between the Queen and her brother Ser Jaime of the Kingsguard.  His siblings are likewise not more than Lannister bastards.  You are King Robert’s true heir, there being no trueborn children within his marriage to Cersei of the House Lannister, and my father attempted to entrust the Realm to you as was his duty as Hand of the King. It came at the cost of his own life. 

 

I do not reject your claim to the throne nor do I hold my men’s words above you as leverage. Lord Eddard did as his duty and honor bid him and no less, it would shame his memory to claim a throne he died trying to protect for  _ you  _ as my own.  I therefore acknowledge you, Stannis Baratheon, as rightful King of Westeros.  

 

I have consulted with my mother, and she has noted a problem to which I may offer a solution.  You have no sons, and rumour has it that your brother Renly seeks to usurp your throne for himself.  Further, my mother points out to me that Queen Selyse has borne a single daughter in all your years of marriage and is of an age where her ability to give you more children comes increasingly in doubt. With each moon that passes Queen Selyse is less and less likely to give House Baratheon the sons it so badly needs. It is a hard truth but the laws that bind me to your service also prevent your daughter, the Princess Shireen, from inheriting the Iron Throne after you. Given her mother’s difficulties she is unlikely to give you a grandson before the Stranger comes for you.  You are in need of a wife who can give you sons.

  
  
  


My sisters are imprisoned  in King’s Landing. I fear for their wellbeing and do not trust the words of a Lannister bastard, as it was by the words of that same Lannister bastard that my father lost his head. Lady Sansa is yet betrothed to Joffrey, and she is regularly forced to send ravens asking for me to come to King’s Landing and swear fealty to Cersei’s bastard son. The letters are always in her hand, so I know she lives. Though she writes of Lady Arya being bedridden with grief, I have no indication that Joffrey has left my youngest sister alive. She is a spirited girl and of the two of them the Lannisters would have the greater joy from her torments. Her head may yet be on a spike next to Lord Eddard’s.

 

I am far away, and poorly positioned to rescue my sisters.  You are not.   Let us be family, Your Grace, and fight the coming war as men who are soon to be brothers than simply a lord and his king. My father consented for Lady Sansa to wed a Baratheon.  I now offer her hand to you, if you are able to secure her safety and freedom from the Lannisters, and if you will put your current wife aside.  There has been much thought given to my humble request, do not think this offer is made lightly.

 

My sister is young, but she is healthy, and my mother advises that her lineage gives excellent prospects for her ability to give you sons.  My mother, Lady Catelyn, gave my father five healthy children. She never lost a babe and there was never concern for her in the birthing bed. Sansa is a true lady, virtuous, gentle, and clever, and she is exceedingly fair.  She would be a Queen that would grace any King’s court.

 

The North will grieve deeply should she or Lady Arya perish in King’s Landing for whatever reason, but war is hard.   I know their lives to be in peril.  So to serve you and hopefully save them, I, Robb of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and Warden of the North swear this day my fealty as well as that of my bannermen to you, Stannis, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Together with my grandfather Hoster of the House Tully, Lord of Riverrun and the Riverlands, I have all the swords of the North and the Riverlands at my command.  They are yours from this day until their last day, but my heart is heavy as I swear them to you. Should you seek annulment from your marriage to Queen Selyse, and choose to enter a betrothal with my sister, I would be greatly reassured. 

 

May the gods gift you with good health and favor in the coming months, Your Grace,

 

Lord Robb of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.


	2. Stannis I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating! Thank you everyone for the lovely response so far to this fic!!

The pre-dawn fog clung to Stannis as he walked.  He was nearly alone save Davos slipping after him by a few paces. The parchment crushed tightly in his fist dug a few hard edges into his palm but Stannis welcomed the distraction. It had been several days since the Manderly vessel had arrived to Dragonstone--a man aboard bearing a letter to Stannis from Robb Stark. The contents had been shocking and his mind had been slow to clear and slower to realize the gravity of Robb Stark's proposal. An alliance between them, the young Stark's pledge of loyal service by both Northern and Riverlander forces and full acknowledgment of Stannis' claims to the throne. It was cosigned by Lord Hoster Tully. All for the price of Stannis' own marriage to Selyse being set aside in favor of wedding Ned Stark's eldest daughter. In just a few lines Lord Stark asked Stannis to break a marriage that he had not yet betrayed in any fashion, to send away a wife who had only borne a girl despite all their years of marriage, to sacrifice his honor for this chance at turning the tide of the war into an early victory.

All he had to do was make sure the Stark girls, especially Lady Sansa, survived long enough to fulfill their brother's promises.

It was all too much, to be asked this above what he was already doing. Robert had left no trueborn heirs, and his vicious wife had a reputation for murdering what bastards she could find—there was a reason that Jon Arryn had kept them so secret, and rarely did Robert even know of their existence. It left Stannis standing as the rightful heir to his brother’s throne. Better than almost anyone else in Westeros he knew the dire situation that the realm faced, what needed to be done to correct the disastrous course Robert and Joffrey had sent it careening towards. If only he could make men believe him using only his words. It irked him now that he lacked the effortless skills of his brothers, how men seemed to flock around them offering allegiance and respect. Things he needed if he was to serve and protect the realm as he was meant to.

Without support his kingship would not last long enough for winter to reach the Neck let alone King’s Landing. His wife and child were relying on him, his bannermen too, but the realm needed him too. The realm needed everything he could give it, perhaps more than that even. Stannis had to find it in himself to rise to the occasion, though, it was what good kings did. He would be a good king.

The cold, damp air bit into his lungs as he hiked up towards a cliff that was his frequent haunt when he couldn’t stand looking at the dreary black halls of his keep. It was something like tears, the sharp feeling that bloomed in his chest, but he didn’t have time for things like that. The Realm didn’t have time for things like that, and letting his emotions run away with him had been Robert’s folly for many years.

“What news from Lord Stark, your grace?” Davos’ voice was steady and confident, knowing from years of friendship that in private there was every reason to speak his mind.  Stannis becoming king did not change any of that.

For a brief moment the face of Ned Stark flashed in Stannis’ mind. The last time he’d seen Ned had been during the Ironborn Rebellion. Stannis had been leading the fleet against the Ironborn, and Ned Stark was to command whatever army they managed to land on the main island of Pyke. They were doing their duty for their king: the man they were each brother to in a way.

It had been Ned who honorably declared, at what proved to be the cost of his own life, that Stannis was Robert’s rightful heir.  Ned Stark had done his duty but he had, according to rumor, sacrificed that same honor in an attempt to save the life of his daughter and preserve the realm from war. In the end he had been betrayed by Joffrey, his trust in the honor of others leading to his demise.

Now Ned’s son asked Stannis to forsake his own duty and honor—in return for soldiers, in return for a solid base to stand on in the war to come. For a moment Stannis thought of passing the crushed parchment to his friend but remembered himself before he embarrassed them both. Davos could neither read nor write. Perhaps Cressen or Pylos would be persuaded to teach him someday.

“Tell me what you would do,” Stannis asked, slowing his pace and glancing over his shoulder to his friend,“if I asked for more than your fingers on your part to attain Cape Wrath? What if I asked you to give up Marya, your boys?” Davos’ brow quirked, his returning question silent. The games of the highborns were still above his head and Stannis envied him for a heartbeat. Davos had a duty to his heart, and he had never yet failed the task.

“Robb Stark writes that he has secured the strength of the Riverlands in addition to raising his own banners,” Stannis led with, walking side by side now with Davos. His guts still churned at the thought of what the boy asked of him.  The tone of the letter had been respectful but the request was insolent. The sun would rise soon, and his little cliff was one of the first places where the fog burned away. Davos would help burn away the fog in Stannis’ own mind.  “He asks that at the end of the war I marry his sister, the Lady Sansa.”

Davos was silent for many steps, and Stannis was content to let him keep his counsel. He knew that he should refuse the boy. Selyse had never betrayed him and he had never betrayed her. Love had never grown between them, not helped by his distaste for her roots in the Reach nor by their mutual distaste for their humiliation on their wedding night. Dragonstone’s environs had not done them any favors either, but they had made it work. Their household did not overrun its expenses, the smallfolk were for the most part content, their daughter was growing up with a sound mind and body. It was not a life Stannis wanted to throw away for a boy’s promise, and a girl he had never seen.

“I take it he has forgotten you are already married for many years?”

“No he has not.  He means for the Queen to be set aside in his sister’s favor. He takes great pains to mention her beauty and how Lady Catelyn bore many children for Lord Eddard.” It stung that Robb Stark so boldly pointed out Stannis’ own dearth of children. He had wanted children, no matter who their mother was, and it was their lack that had fueled his mad quest to keep Shireen alive when the grayscale had afflicted her. Something had been born in him when he’d been starving to death in Storm’s End. It was dark and hungry for selfish things, furious when denied. Right now it wanted him to throw his wife aside. Marry Sansa Stark the minute she finished her next bleeding and fill his halls with children. It was an impulse only but a tantalizing one.

Davos kept looking ahead at their path as it twisted and wound towards the cliffs, but he wrapped his hand around the bag of bones that hung around his neck. The fingers that had paid for his crimes of smuggling. He had set aside being whole for the chance at the life Stannis offered him.

“It is no great sacrifice for a king to marry a beautiful lady so she may birth his heirs,” Davos eventually said, his voice low as it usually was when he meant to point out awkward truths, “nor is it a sacrifice to give allegiance to a rightful lord. The boy asks his king to forswear his own duty while giving only service he already owes.” At that they came to a stop, looking out at the darkness, hearing the waves crash furiously on the rocks below them.  Out to the east the sky was slowly lighting up.

Stannis hated it here. Every rock and path, every turret and window—it all had been met at least once with his disdain since he’d first been given the island.

“It is perhaps my lot,” Stannis said quietly, “to be asked to accept such insults. I worry I have grown used to them and that I will act rashly now that I’m given the freedom to refuse. But the boy has rounded up his own men, gained his grandfather’s support, and he offers it to me and no other.” The clouds on the horizon were so thick that the rising sun only made them light, no yellows or reds leaked through. Only gray, the color of the Starks.

“You are king now, Your Grace, both options are within your power to choose. The boy offers you men, he offers the immediate loyalty of the North and the Riverlands—two of seven kingdoms. Meanwhile your brother is rallying the lords of the Stormlands to his own banner, it will not be long before he calls himself king.”

“Taking the Realm into a deeper civil war still,” Stannis added when Davos fell silent. The wind stirred their cloaks, picking up as the dawn broke. It never truly stopped, whipping fiercely at dawn and at sunset, and it was perhaps one thing that didn’t bother him about Dragonstone. The wind reminded him of his childhood, when the winter winds would claw and scream at the walls of Storm’s End.

Davos provided a rare glimpse into how the smallfolk thought of the great schemes and games that the highborns played with one another. There was a bitterness there at the thoughtlessness of generals and lordlings and kings, the demands for food and clothing with little understanding of how wars and taxes and seasons affected those below. Very few were those who were able to escape that in some fashion, their solutions often lying beyond the arms of the law. Perhaps that had been why Aegon the Conqueror had relied so heavily on his bastard brother, for Orys Baratheon had been born on the wrong side of the sheets and his life was much different than that of a dragonlord. Nothing had ever been given to the founder of his house, not even the man’s wife had been handed to him. Orys had risen to become Hand of the King.

Orys had escaped this damned rock, too.

Stannis’s whole upper body ached from how tense he was. How tense he’d been the last several days. What might Robb Stark do if he sent a stringent reply, asserting that the Starks and the Tullys owed him their loyalty, that they were sworn to serve the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and that they would pay for their affront towards his wife? His barren wife, who had only managed to give him one living child in more than a decade of marriage.

Lady Catelyn had given her husband five living, healthy children. Her mother gave Lord Hoster three. Ned’s mother had birthed three sons and a daughter. That sharp, cutting feeling was building in his chest again, spiking with every breath he took. Selyse had been loyal to him, but she’d never given him a son. A few miscarried babes, lost too soon to know their sex. Shireen. Nothing else.

When Shireen was born he had barely put her down, taking her around every hallway of his damned castle and showing it to her despite himself and his hatred of the place. It was his, and it would be hers. Watching her solemn blue eyes stare up at him, her tiny hand wrapped tightly around one of his fingers, brought furtive smiles to his lips as he couldn't believe his luck with such a child. The wet-nurse had barely been able to wrest her away from him for feedings. His daughter, his child, a girl that would grow up without war, whose father would stand at her wedding to a worthy man. He’d wanted so many more children, siblings who would look up to his beautiful daughter, who would look after one another and be free with their love and affection.

Everything he’d missed in his own family.

“He must promise Renly’s loyalty,” Stannis eventually said, the words deadly serious as he uttered them, “and that he will answer for it one way or another.” It was as stern as he wished to be towards Robb Stark’s brazen words, but it also left the young lord a way to redeem himself in Stannis’ eyes. Davos was nodding along with him, eyes steely as he looked out at the horizon. They were in a terrible place, in need of money and allies more than they were flowery words, and it seemed out of everyone that at least Davos understood the magnitude of it.

None of the stress melted from his shoulders. He still felt as tightly strung as a bow, his jaw aching from how tightly he clenched his teeth even when he was asleep. The letter, crumpled and ruined, was still clutched in his hand and now he took it out to read it once more—there was just enough light now to make it possible. Every title was there, every courtesy, everything he had never wanted for himself. Down below were words about Hoster Tully’s fears for his granddaughters, Robb Stark’s fears for his sisters, the men that had answered the calls of their sworn lords. The request that Stannis take pains to ensure Lady Sansa and her sister Lady Arya survived the war, and that upon its end Stannis set aside his wife and marry Lady Sansa. It was not the sort of letter that a more seasoned lord might write to his king, but all men inherited their father’s mantle and titles—some were ready for it, some were not.

“Will you give him much leeway with that? Renly grew up admiring the pomp of Sunspear, Highgarden, and the Free Cities, the wealth and luxury of his Lannister goodsister. He likely wants to name himself king so he might continue on in the path of your elder brother.”

“Just deliver Renly and his men to my cause. If the Stark girls perish as their father did he will be my heir. I will not settle this burden on Shireen’s shoulders, inconsiderate of how she feels about it, as Ned Stark settled it on mine. If Renly wants to be King after this war is ended it shall be as the last—over the bodies of innocent children and a betrayed king.”

Davos chuckled dryly at his bold statement.

“You are a bit less mad than old Mad Aerys was, though, there will be more sympathy for you in the stories than is given to him.”

Stannis rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky. He had known, when he left King’s Landing after Jon Arryn’s death, that if his suspicions were true then he was his brother’s rightful heir. It had been Ned Stark who had picked up where they’d left off, Ned Stark who had put together the pieces and had risked his neck to speak the truth. He had paid for that truth, but he did not have to live to see the world his actions had wrought. When Stannis had told Selyse that he was going to pursue Ned’s declaration, to move forward as King of Westeros, she had been catatonic. Her outer expressions mirrored his internal ones.

Shireen, always unsure around her parents, had been a little better. Her life had always been daunting to her, the mountain wasn’t that much higher to go from Lady Shireen to Princess. She was strong, obviously a true Baratheon, and he had used her poise to manufacture some of his own. How would she feel to lose what was now her birthright? Would it leave her as bitter as it had left him? He hoped not, but he had no control over the thoughts and deeds of others.

The sun was probably a few degrees above the horizon now, but the cloud cover and fog stubbornly remained.

“When are you going to tell them?” There was something rough in Davos’ voice. Out of everyone, Davos had been the only one to sincerely express his sadness that Stannis and Selyse found no happiness together. Lady Marya was his friend’s treasure, no castle or lands or titles would equal her value to him. Marya and Davos had been one another’s choice, no man had demanded their union and no man would have lamented if she’d given him a single daughter rather than the seven sons she’d born him. If Robb Stark had asked Davos Seaworth to set aside his marriage the young lord might have found himself in the position of the ancient Argillac Durrendon against Aegon Targaryen.

But Robb Stark not had asked Davos Seaworth. He asked Stannis Baratheon, who had no sons to his name—not even bastards. Stannis had a duty to Selyse, but he also had a duty to the Realm. The people of the realm would not thank him if he allowed the Starks and the Tullys to tear their lands apart, even less if it became known he could have prevented it.

“When Lord Stark agrees to my own demands. Renly must swear allegiance as the Lord of Storm’s End, the bannermen of the Stormlands must follow him in that allegiance. I will not harm my family for something that may break up on the rocks.” Davos’ shoulders slumped as something in him relaxed. He knew of the hungry and dark part of Stannis, the part that had crowed victory when reading Ned Stark’s letter—the declaration that Stannis was the true heir to the Iron Throne upon Robert’s death—the part that wanted sons and respect. Davos also knew that as much as Stannis espoused responsibility and duty he was still a Baratheon, with hot blood and an angry heart.

“I’d caution him, when you respond, to not over-promise himself. It will not be in his best interest if he secures Renly’s forces if at the end of the war you must punish him for overstepping his bounds. He does not know you as I do.”

Stannis nodded, kicking idly at the stubborn grass that grew in patches all around his barren little island. The boy had another sister to give, perhaps Lady Arya might be promised to Renly, and perhaps by the time she was of age to marry his brother would have given up on his other attachments. Something mean in him thought of promising dominion over both Storm’s End as well as Dragonstone, on condition that Renly spend much of his time on Dragonstone rather than the comforting halls of their forefathers.

“Renly knows me, though, he will know if Robb pledges something not in his power to give.”

“As you say,” Davos agreed, though there was clearly something still on his mind. Stannis let him ruminate in silence, his own thoughts turning to logistics and numbers. The power of the Riverlands was a boon he would sorely regret losing if Robb declined to parlay with Renly, especially since the last several wars on the mainland had taken place largely in the Riverlands. If they could but push that war to the Crownlands or perhaps the Westerlands he would have more of the minor lords of the Riverlands  on his side—which meant they would be more amenable to helping feed his armies as they fought whatever resistance Tywin Lannister managed to drum up.

“Will you use her Red God or the Faith of the Seven?” Davos asked.

“What?”

Davos cleared his throat, taking a pace away and then turning to face Stannis fully. He had both hands tucked under his arms—his half-hand must ache terribly, Stannis thought to himself as he took in the sight of his friend. All his life he had only had Cressen, and then Davos had sailed his little skiff through the blockade of the Redwynes and Stannis had found a better brother than Robert or Renly had ever been to him.

“When you end the marriage, I am assuming you’re not going to toss the Queen off a battlement or make her walk the plank—are you going to use her witch or ask the Faith to end it?”

“Selyse and I may not get on but she is not Cersei Lannister, she will live to see her old age. I think,” Stannis sucked his teeth, thinking of the Starks and their queer religion. Lady Catelyn followed the Seven, she’d been born in Riverrun after all, and her husband had built her a sept somewhere in Winterfell. It stood to reason that some of her children would follow the Seven, perhaps worshiping both the Seven and the old gods. The religion that Selyse had taken up, along with the fanatic priestess she’d summoned, was only barely known in Westeros.

“If I allow her witch to proclaim the marriage is over the Faith will throw their weight behind Renly as my heir even if I married Lady Sansa and had a dozen sons by her—they would claim that my wedding to Selyse was never put aside, not in a legal fashion, and that Lady Sansa’s children were bastards all. I do not think that Robb Stark or Hoster Tully would appreciate such things being said of their kinswoman.”

“So you’ll be wanting a septon sent for as well—his arrival will be telling to Her Grace. You will have to inform her of Lord Stark’s proposal at that point, or you’ll have little peace.”

Stannis shook his head, disagreeing immediately.

Robb Stark had seen something he was too prideful to see himself. The laws of the realm prevented him naming Shireen his heir without incident, and he knew that he did no favors to himself by having not only a single heir but a daughter at that. Stannis might be able to control the realm during his middle years but his hold would loosen with age. Shireen would inherit another civil war if he named her his heir and he didn’t want that for his daughter.

“The Tyrells have an unwed daughter close in age to Lady Sansa. If both Stark girls meet their ends in King’s Landing it will only benefit me to be able to wed Lady Margaery immediately. I would need to get to her first, for I am sure that Renly will see that same wisdom himself.”

Davos barked out a laugh, the echoes in the fog jarring and unsettling even though the sound was merry.

“I would have thought you more interested in destroying the Tyrells root and stem than letting them get their claws into your House, letting them mother your heirs.”

“They look for opportunity and take it. If I am unmarried they will be less likely to ally with Tywin Lannister and Joffrey—they will think to put their daughter in a marriage bed with me in return for the loyalty of their army, and at the end of the war I will reward them by putting their daughter in a marriage bed with a Dornishman.”

“Lady Olenna may let her idiot son do idiot things but she will never let him fall for so obvious a trap,” Davos replied, stamping his feet against the persistent chill that had surrounded them all morning. Stannis risked a snort, thankful that Davos had taken to being a Stormlander in the manner of his mislike of Reachmen and Tyrells. It was the one thing that the Stormlanders and the Dornish could usually agree on—people from the Reach were two-faced turncoats more than they were anything else.

“No, she won’t, but she might think differently if I am allied to Robb Stark and Hoster Tully. Three of the seven is better than two of the seven.” _Four is a majority then._

They fell into silence then until it grew too cold to just stand about. The sun was not making any headway against the overcast skies, let alone the fog, and the wind was getting more insistent. There were letters to write, and he knew that Selyse and her Florent men would not be in favor of sending the red priestess away—better to do away with Melisandre’s presence sooner than later, for he did not want any more of his men to fall prey to her teachings while he was hoping the Faith would grant him an easy annulment. Stannis did not want to force the issue and make things more awkward than they already had to be.

There was no true proof that she was barren or he was unable, but here they were with only a single daughter. Selyse had not proven as fruitful as almost any of her other Florent relatives. It was hateful to think it but Stannis could only look at Robert’s example with women—only when they rid themselves of his children did they fail to bear them. He had seen so many healthy children who sported his family’s looks, mothered by women who spent only a night or two with Robert. And that was without the aid of a maester to predict when they might fall pregnant.

But even if Robert had had trueborn children Stannis would not have been content with just Shireen. She was a bright child, perhaps she might even grow up a beauty—Renly had had an awkward phase himself at her age, finally growing into his looks when he entered his early teens. He loved Shireen, dearly, but he wanted more than a single child. He hoped she would not resent him setting aside her mother for younger woman who had higher chances of giving him the sons he needed.

“You’re right,” Davos said with a heavy sigh, “you’re right. No matter the angle if you are to do your duty you must do this. Besides, the realm would rather have a dutiful and practical king than whatever mad child came out of Cersei Lannister and her brother.”

“Even if the children were legitimate I would owe it to the Realm to at least put Tommen on the throne,” Stannis bit out, turning away from the cliff and making his way back towards the keep, “for Joffrey murdered the last Lord of Winterfell in as treacherous a manner as King Aerys murdered the one before. Westeros cannot withstand kings that betray their people in such a way.”

Davos made a sound of agreement, matching his pace as they walked, and they said no more of either Lord Robb Stark or the young man’s audacious demands. When they reached the keep Davos went off to eat with his family while Stannis headed for the maester’s tower. He drafted his letter in private with Cressen, spending a little precious time with the man that had raised him and who looked after his well-being even at the expense of his own. When he sealed the parchment a little over an hour later, staring at the yellow wax as it hardened, his heart beat calmly enough.

It thundered when he put it into the hands of Robb Stark’s man just before he boarded the Manderly ship that would take him back to the mainland. Watching the ship cast off, Stannis had to clench his hands into fists to conceal their shaking. Despite Ned Stark’s proclamation this made his present station much more real, for now he called on the loyal service of the North and the Riverlands to bring his brother to heel.

He called on them as their king, entering a contract between lord and vassal that the last few kings had had trouble obeying. Stannis vowed, watching the ship depart, he would be better. The throne was his right but he would be worthy of it as well.

Turning abruptly from the view of the harbor he made his way to the castle, deciding to wander through the store rooms before heading back to his council. If someone asked him what he found there Stannis wouldn’t have been able to answer very clearly. His breaths came short and fast, the vows he’d spoken to Selyse running endlessly through his mind, and he stumbled down to sit on a stack of wheat. The rough burlap of the sacks bit into his skin, grounding him and he rubbed his palms against it.

After a good amount of time he felt like he would be able to stand up without vomiting up last night’s supper, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and shaking his shoulders out. It was done. The Starks had made a move in his favor, he’d made a counter-move hoping to better his position. There was nothing more to be done other than wait.

If there was anything Stannis was good at it was waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought!


	3. Arya I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to Blue BlueCichlid for her help writing this, she is magical!

Arya woke up early enough that only a few birds were singing. There was a hint of fog above the dew on the grasses, but if she looked up she could see the stars twinkling in the steadily lightening sky. She was curled up in a pile with the other children, and when she sat up she saw Gendry who had the last watch of the night. He was leaning up against a tree, looking up at the sky through the branches, a rock in his hands that he turned over and over as he sat in perfect stillness. A short pang went through her.

_ Father had sat in the godswood beneath the large weirwood, watching the steam roll off the surface of the hot springs. He would never sit there again. _

Shaking the thought away she stood up and crept away to relieve herself while everyone else was still sleeping. No one had come close to catching her yet but she had no intention of being found out for a girl. Not when she had only Needle and Yoren to protect her. Someone like Gendry might, if he felt like it, but he was nearly a man and might not care about a little girl. He let Arya tag along with him when Yoren was busy with other things, going for firewood with him and setting up camp each night, but she didn’t know Gendry.  She wished for Jon Snow who stuck up for her when no one else did.

She managed to keep from crying when everyone bedded down at the end of each day but it was a close thing sometimes. Joffrey had taken her father’s head, and over Yoren’s shoulder she had gotten a glimpse of Sansa still on the ground.  They must have stabbed her, too.  That meant they’d killed everyone. Sansa, stupid Jeyne Poole, her father’s men, Father. She was the only one left out of those who had gone South with the King.

“Yoren says he wants to make it to an actual inn today, and then on to Darry by the turn of the moon,” Gendry murmured when she came back and settled in next to him for a bit of warmth. The mornings were growing steadily cooler as they headed away from King’s Landing and the crisp air would have been refreshing if she’d been traveling with her family. Instead it was just cold.

Arya nodded as she pulled up some of the reedy grass, focusing on the sharp smell of the broken blades, and kept pulling at it until dawn properly broke.  With it Yoren roused the rest of the camp and got everyone moving. Her fingers ached, and her hand was stained a yellow green, but it let her keep breathing steadily. The fog burned off early in the morning and they made good time. Lommy and Hot Pie got in a shoving match over nothing and Arya had to bite her tongue when one of the men cuffed each boy over the head. They were just children, she wanted to yell at him.  It wasn’t fair.

There wasn’t much for supper that night, but it was at least food. Yoren mentioned that a day or so up the road there was a farmer who would usually let them have some apples from his orchards before they moved on—though he made careful mention that no one was supposed to eat too many of the things and get the shits. After that they would need to rely more and more on hunting as well as snares for rabbits and squirrels. Villages and towns would be much further apart and less willing to share even the gleanings of their fields with strange travelers.

A blister had formed on the side of her pointer finger from when she’d been pulling at the grass that morning and Arya stared at it, in the twilight, poking it this way and that, watching the skin pucker and swell from the fluid beneath it. Maester Luwin would lance the blisters her brothers got from their training in the yard, and Jon had even let her watch when the old man did it. He’d chuckled, with a boy’s version of Father’s voice, when her eyes bulged out when she saw the delicate knife that the old maester handled with such ease.

Sansa had gotten blisters from her sewing, but she never took them to the maester. Instead she had continued to work steadily until the skin of her fingers toughened to the point where she didn’t always feel it if the needle found her fingertip as she sewed. The blisters had appeared on her pointer finger and her thumb most often, sitting under her skin throbbing red around the edges. Never once had Arya seen Sansa lance them herself, despite her needles being just as sharp as Maester Luwin’s little blade. Arya had never dared ask why her sister so quietly bore the pain when their brothers were encouraged to take themselves to the maester.

The Lannisters had killed her all the same. She’d even been loyal to them, getting Lady killed in the process, and she’d betrayed Arya--her own blood--for Joffrey’s sake. They’d repaid her by murdering her in the same moment as they’d executed Father. Why else would the Kingsguard leave her on the steps of the sept, limp and broken? She was to have been the Queen someday and they’d put a knife in her gut. Perfect Sansa who only wanted sweetness and songs, who was obedient and beloved, whose manners were well honed despite her age--everyone had said so--who had never sliced open her blisters.

Arya wanted to rip her own blister open, wanting something other than her heart and head to have a dull and throbbing ache. However that night when Arya fell asleep, the pad of her thumb still worrying the bubble of the blister, she had convinced herself to leave it untouched, just as Sansa always had. The next morning she stared at the lump in the predawn light, the edges of it far more pronounced than the day before, and she decided to practice with Needle enough that the thing opened on its own. At least once whatever breakfast they had was eaten and cleared away she would do so, letting the clear air of the day dry it out so she could pull away the skin more easily. She never got the chance to force it open with her little sword though. As they were about to stamp out the cook fire the sound of horses filled the air.

It was a small band, no more than a dozen, on horseback and they moved at a steady canter down the road, headed south. There were no standards bearing sigils but that didn’t mean anything. If Arya was someone like the old Lannister Lion she would keep her sigils packed away until there was an actual need of them. With this in mind she decided to stand just behind Yoren and next to Gendry. Yoren was a man grown, sworn to the Wall. Gendry was around Robb’s age, perhaps older, and he was big for whatever age that was.   She hoped she would be safe with them.

“Don’t quench that fire,” one of the riders called out, sounding harried and exhausted, “we’ve been riding since the birds started singing, and without food in our bellies.  We’ll stop for a moment and use your coals.” Then another rider urged their mount forward and stopped their whole group. One horse in particular caught Arya’s eye, resembling greatly the mount that Lord Manderly had once bred and given to Father. It had been a nameday gift, in turn, to Mother who had treasured it greatly. On good days she would go riding out with Father on the moors, her red hair flying out behind her like a banner.

“You will do no good if you have us kill the horses beneath us, nor if the men are too dizzy from hunger to prevent another attack such as the one you experienced in the Vale,” the man said to his companion The two riders seemed to glare at one another, their horses dancing and whickering under them.

The Vale? Wasn’t that were Mother’s sister had holed up, fearing the Lannisters and hiding from them? Wasn’t that where Mother had taken the Imp--just before the Kingslayer had attacked Father in the streets of Flea Bottom? Arya held her breath, her eyes wide as she watched the altercation. All over a fire, it certainly sounded like something Mother would do.

“We cannot delay, the horses can take it, and you are hardy men. We are under the orders of Lord Robb and Lord Hoster,” another man’s voice rang out, booming and angry. The horse he forked was a huge Riverlander destrier but his clothing was strangely sturdy, more along the lines of garments she’d seen in the North.

The main riders were still in a standoff but they calmed enough that they were no longer spooking their own horses. Arya caught the flash of silver fish buttons beneath the cloak of one of them and she sobbed. It couldn’t be--there was no way.

“Mother!” Arya didn’t care for maintaining her disguise now, dashing out onto the road and straight towards the horse. Mother’s was a sleek and well muscled chestnut, with bloodlines from both White Harbor and distant ones in the Vale. This had to be the horse--it had to be.

The rider snatched the cloak away from their head to reveal bright red hair, braided back in thick plaits, and at her throat a blue and gray neckline was revealed. Big blue eyes searched out her own and Arya’s breath caught in her throat. It was. It was Mother, she’d come! She would be protected by her mother. Father was gone, but she had her  _ mother _ . Robb had sent someone to come retrieve her, she knew that he wouldn’t have left Father and Sansa and Arya to rot in King’s Landing—he believed he could reason with King Joffrey, man to man. He had sent Mother to save them, to get them back.

“Arya!”

Lady Catelyn slid from her saddle, feet unsteady beneath her as she opened up her arms and caught Arya—breaking their fall to the ground with her shoulder and clutching her so tightly it was hard to breathe. The tears that Arya had tried to contain for the last several weeks came out in a downpour, every breath that she gasped in was flooded with her mother’s scent. It lasted only a few minutes, with Mother humming soothing words into her ear and stroking her hair gently, pressing kisses to her forehead and cheeks. It didn’t seem like she cared that they were ruining her fine riding cloak with the dust from the road, or that Arya was dressed as a boy and carrying around a sword, it was like she was a tiny child again and allowed to crawl up into her mother’s lap.

When she finally looked into her mother’s face she saw that her own tears were mirrored there, the streaks outlining where the dust of the road had caked itself against her pale skin. Lady Catelyn’s blue eyes were red from crying and deep bags from sleepless nights made her face look gaunt and hollow but Arya had seen a great deal more horrific things than these and she trustingly nuzzled her head up under her mother’s chin and let herself relax. She was feeling boneless and hazy, drunk from how happy she was.

“Where is Sansa?”

And just like that her peace was broken. Her mother’s hands still threaded through her hair in comforting strokes but there was something expectant in it now. Arya squeezed her arms tighter around her mother, listening to her heartbeat and her breaths. She pretended she hadn’t heard the question.

“Arya, where is your sister?” There was an edge to her voice now and Arya’s heart was in her throat, choking her words, when finally Yoren answered for her.

“Lady Arya escaped the Red Keep, a servant smuggled her out I think. I was taking her to Winterfell, milady, out of respect for the Starks. There was no one with her.”

Lady Catelyn’s shocked ‘oh’ was all Arya needed to know, even as her mother clutched her tighter against herself, that she was not the daughter that everyone had hoped for. Sansa, who was beloved by everyone, who didn’t misbehave, who was never caught lying, was the one that Robb had sent Mother after. To find Arya was only second best to her perfect sister. Tears tried to slip out and down her face but she squeezed her eyes shut just in time to stave them off. She would get to go back to Winterfell and that was the most important thing.

Eventually her mother sat up properly, still cradling Arya in her arms like she had when she was small, and they sat together watching Yoren’s group finish breaking their camp and Lady Catelyn’s riders prepare their own. Arya caught Hot Pie’s eye and took in the sad tilt of his mouth. Lommy and Gendry were similarly subdued. It made fresh tears well in her eyes and she pushed away from her mother’s arms and stood up, shaking her clothing back into place and wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. Her steps were steady as she made her way to her friends.

“Sweetling where are you going?” Mother’s voice was a bit strained and Arya sniffled pathetically, remembering that her mother had always reserved that nickname for Sansa. Sansa who was dead, and Mother would always blame Arya for saving herself but not her sister. If anyone in their family had ever held grudges it had been Mother. No one would listen to Arya’s side of the story, they never did before so why would they start now that Father had been executed and Sansa had been murdered?

“You could’ve said,” Hot Pie mumbled, his fair hair tumbling into his eyes as he fidgeted with a loose thread on his tunic, “we wouldn’ta said nothing.” Arya gave him a half-hearted shove accompanied with a watery chuckle.

“You big lump, you can’t keep tomorrow’s breakfast secret,” she said. Hot Pie blushed deeply and Arya felt a bit bad but also a faint comfort bloomed in her heart—he’d taken her words more sharply than she’d meant them, just the way she and Sansa had always been. There had been more than a bid for warmth when she slept in a little pile with the other boys on this journey—their snores and farts reminded her of Sansa complaining of Arya’s cold feet seeking out Sansa’s warm calves, and Sansa’s incredibly unladylike drool mucking up Arya’s hair when they curled up close on cold nights.

“Arya.” She turned and looked up at her mother who towered behind her—tall as an Umber, she’d once heart a man at arms say of her mother—and stared defiant up into her blue eyes.

“We was just sayin’ goodbye, milady,” Lommy volunteered helpfully, patting Arya’s shoulder exaggeratedly. She watched Mother’s eyelid twitch at the sight of his green fingers and forearms—he’d been apprentice to a dyer, learning to make plain linen and cotton into something beautiful that women like Mother and Sansa and Queen Cersei liked to wrap themselves up in. The Wall was no place for boys like him, not even really ones like Gendry or Hot Pie. The North was cold and hard, and though Arya missed it she knew that it was not a place that southrons flourished in. Mother was a rare exception to the rule

The Wall would chew up her friends and spit them out bloody and broken. There was a reason that so few honorable men went there these days. They knew better than to throw away their lives there. A flicker of anger, one she quickly stamped out before it could show on her face, filled her that Mother had driven Jon there. Sweet Jon Snow who let her tag along behind him, who let her watch the maester lance his blisters, was too far down his path to be saved. She could save her friends though--maybe Mother wasn’t so disappointed in finding Arya instead of Sansa that she would be gracious.

“We weren’t saying goodbye,” Arya said, her voice flat and her eyes hard. Her friends hesitated, their faces filled with uncertainty. Lady Catelyn was as confused as they were, it seemed for she opened her mouth and shut it again without saying anything.

“They’re going with us,” she continued, crossing her arms and holding her mother’s gaze, “they’re my friends. They helped keep me safe from the others.” It was a bit of a lie, she and Lommy didn’t get on as well as she did with Hot Pie and Gendry, but if Mother was going to be disappointed in only getting her back Arya might as well disappoint properly. And save her friends from the Wall—she’d already lost one brother to the Night’s Watch and she would not lose these ones too.

Lady Catelyn was speechless and Arya glanced towards Yoren with a look she hoped her mother didn’t see how pleading it was and he cleared his throat meaningfully.

“She speaks the truth, Lady Stark, the boys kept the men of the band from harassing Lady Arya overmuch. Made my job of keeping her safe and whole a deal easier, too, knowing she had some others looking out for her wellbeing.”

“Please, Mother?” The small plea came at just the right time and the ice in her mother’s face melted—no matter that Arya was the wrong daughter she was still Lady Catelyn’s daughter, and that counted for something at least. With a stilted nod her mother agreed to bring the boys along with them, muttering that they would have to buy horses for them on down the road. Arya barely reined in her startled response—she hadn’t truly thought her mother would let her get her way with this, and she quickly wrapped her arms around Lady Catelyn in a quick hug before turning to her friends, nearly vibrating with excitement.

Sansa was dead, and Father too, but Gendry wasn’t. Lommy and Hot Pie weren’t. And they weren’t going to go rot at the Wall, the way her Mother had essentially condemned Jon Snow to doing. On a quick impulse before he mounted his horse she darted over to Yoren and threw her arms tightly around him, inhaling the smell of worn leather and unwashed man, and sending up a prayer that the gods kept him safe. He murmured some comforting little nothing and patted her head before she released him, standing and waving to him as he got his band underway up the kingsroad.

“And what if we’d all wanted to go along with Yoren?” Gendry mumbled later on, ruffling his hair a bit and scratching the back of his head as she spun around dizzily with Lommy. Arya shrieked when Lommy lost his grip on her and they both went flying in other directions.

“But you didn’t want to all go along with Yoren, he was just offering passage out of King’s Landing and you took him up on it,” she said, breathless as she picked herself up again. Gendry rolled his eyes and flicked the side of her head as he sat back down where he’d eaten his breakfast. Arya giggled and kicked his foot as she pushed down the memories of her father choosing to quietly sit to the side—she had Mother back, and that would be enough.

“Arya, calm down and come here,” Lady Catelyn called from where one of the knights was laying out a blanket for her to sit on. Arya was about to protest when she caught her mother’s glare directed towards Lommy and his green hands again and she decided that she could bear being still for a moment. If she knew her mother she knew that she occasionally enforced her notions of propriety at a moment’s notice. Lady Catelyn wasn’t fair, especially not to Arya.

“We are traveling south on your brother Robb’s behalf,” her mother said, her voice low and serious as she opened her small pack of provisions and took out a piece of bread and split it into two pieces—one for herself and one for Arya.

“Father is dead, and Sansa too,” Arya mumbled, her euphoria from earlier leaking out of her like water in cupped hands, “I watched the Lannisters kill them.”

Lady Catelyn paused, staring into the middle distance for a moment, but took a deep breath before she continued speaking. Her eyes seemed a bit red and watery as she did.

“Your father is dead, but Sansa is alive. We have had correspondence in her hand, with details about the household that only she would know—”

“They stabbed her, Mother, they stabbed her on the steps of the Sept of Baelor and dropped her like she was a bucket of nightsoil,” Arya said, her hand clutching around her bread and crumbling the edges into nothing. It wouldn’t do Mother any good to think that Sansa was alive when she was not. 

Lady Catelyn closed her eyes firmly. Her face was perfectly controlled and calm, though her own fingers trembled just slightly enough that Arya knew her mother at least heard the words. The trembling stopped when her mother replied. 

“She has been betrothed to King Stannis, on condition that we secure his brother Lord Renly’s loyalty. We travel to Highgarden to meet with him.” Arya snorted with anger and threw her bread down onto the blanket in a hail of crumbs. Some of the knights cooking their breakfast over the fire glanced over at them.  It infuriated her that this couldn’t be private, that she was the wrong daughter, that Mother wished it were Sansa who was sitting here now, and it all came out in a flood of words.

“Sansa is dead! And if she weren’t she’d rather be dead than marry some strange man Father’s age, she’d rather be dead than be stuck in that awful stupid city—but she is dead, so it doesn’t matter! No more dances, no more songs, no more feasts, no more princes—and she’ll never get married to anyone because she’s  _ dead! _ ” 

There was a beat and then Mother slapped her, her gaze blazing and tears brimming high in her eyes.

“Sansa is alive, Arya, she is alive and King Stannis has agreed to ensure she is kept safe when he takes King’s Landing. She will be Queen of Westeros when this is all over.” There was a hard coldness to Mother’s voice.

Arya clutched her face where the skin prickled and burned.

Just as quickly as the fury came something like regret flooded those blue eyes but Arya was already standing up and dashing away from the main camp, tears streaming down her face. 


	4. Mace I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry that I left this behind, I still chip away at all my stories and I am really sincerely hoping to finish them. Anyway. I hope that you enjoy this chapter whose genius is due to BlueCichlid's wonderful friendship and ideas.

"Do you like it?” Willas’ question was innocent enough, but Mace couldn’t help the face he pulled. The damn wine was spicy and sour at the same time and he didn’t like it.

“No, but that Baratheon scamp will.” 

“Oberyn likes it, and the Princess Arianne,” Willas replied, sipping bravely at the red wine that the Martells had sent them at the last turn of the moon--the most recent of many things sent to them by Prince Oberyn, the remorse surrounding the tourney that crippled Willas palpable in every elaborately presented gift. Tyrells and Martells were never to be natural friends but Willas was determined to try and for his son Mace would try as well. 

His son had recently shared his suspicions about their friends the Martells and there was part of Mace that yearned to support Doran and his idiot brother. After all he’d had hopes that Margie would wed Prince Aegon someday, before the war had broken out and changed everything. House Martell and House Tyrell would have shared a grandchild who sat the Iron Throne. This was not the time to scheme with Dornishmen, though, with both war and autumn breaking upon them. When both were concluded Westeros would be at the doorway of winter.

The last war had been over before it began but this one would be different. When King Robert had torn apart the realm it had been a war of fast fury, the reticence of several players combining with the zeal of others to bring the war to a close quickly. Now the grandson of Tywin Lannister sat the throne and the granddaughter of Hoster Tully was held hostage in King’s Landing.

Fast fury had killed the entire Targaryen line in a matter of months, and that lesson was one Mace was sure both Lord Tywin and Lord Robb would remember. At the least they had better remember it.  


“I had a raven last night,” Mace said, his voice far-away, and he set the goblet of wine aside as he gazed out towards the stables where Margie and Loras were playing with one of the new foals. He’d always been proud of having so many children, so diverse in their interests but so loyal to their family--even young Margie who was willing to wed as she was bid. There were many in Westeros who were not so lucky as he had been.

Lord Eddard Stark had been lucky, though, despite his untimely death. The man’s younger sons stayed at Winterfell, ruling the castle and the North in their brother’s absence. The eldest son, Robb, had acted quickly to both come to Lord Eddard’s aid as well as assume the title of Lord of the North after the man’s execution. Lord Hightower’s voice boomed in Mace's memory, telling him that men who truly embraced themselves were the ones history remembered. Back then it had been tinged with censure, for Mace was yet an upstart Tyrell in the eyes of a family as old as the Hightowers of Oldtown. It was not for a man like Mace to act so boldly even with such heavy provocation as the Starks had been given, but it seemed to suit Lord Robb perfectly as he faced down the fact that his father had been murdered by his king.

There were still rumors that that king, Joffrey, had reneged on a solemn oath made to the Lord of the North, but other rumors cried out that Lord Stark had conspired to put Lords Stannis or Renly Baratheon on the throne and had rightly paid for his treason. The walls of Highgarden repelled many invaders, but rumors washed over the Tyrells like water over their fields of roses and wheat. 

“Lady Catelyn Stark rides on orders of her son to meet with Lord Renly. She will be here on the morrow if not late tonight,” Mace continued while Willas nursed the spicy Dornish wine in silence. His son’s eyes were trained on Margie and Loras as well, the foal they played with being the offspring of one of Prince Oberyn’s fastest horses. Loras wanted the animal for his own for the tilt while Margie wanted to ride as fast as the winter wind. Their fights were amicable over the foal but Willas worried over the creature like he might have worried over a son.

Everything seemed to hinge on sons, at the first glance at least. Lord Eddard had left behind three sons, King Robert had left behind two, Lord Tywin had called his banners on account of his own two sons, while Mace lingered here in Highgarden with his brood of three. But the game truly rested on daughters now, for there were quite enough sons in the mix. Lady Sansa had been brought to King’s Landing by her father in preparation for her wedding to then-Prince Joffrey. Then there was Princess Myrcella, and the good number of men she might wed to bring swords and soldiers under firm control of the Crown. A Dornish wedding could placate the Martells somewhat and allow them to preen in how well they treated the princess entrusted to them. Margie was coming fully into her age these days and Alerie hinted often that he needed to find a husband for her. Loras went so far as to suggest wedding her to "King" Renly, though Mace hesitated even now at such an idea. 

Renly was Lord of Storm’s End true enough but proclaiming himself king on flimsy evidence was neither prudent nor sustainable. He was fourth in line for the throne, and had only his own bannermen’s support to show for it. The rebellion he fomented had none of the legitimacy that Lord Robb Stark’s possessed--and if Mace were going to wed his only daughter to a rebel he much preferred throwing in on the side that would fall on the right side of the maester’s ink. 

“Does Lady Stark ride alone?”

For a brief moment Mace glanced at Willas, thinking of his son’s age as well as that of Lady Catelyn. She would bring with her the support of the Riverlands and possibly the North—it was too soon to tell, though, what she meant to speak of when she arrived.

“With a respectable band, she asks for accommodations for about a dozen men as well as rooms for herself and her daughter Lady Arya. Your mother is seeing to the arrangements now.” Willas nodded and set aside his wine with a sigh, giving up at least today on acquiring a taste for the vintage. There were other Dornish things that his son enjoyed but the sweet and sour red was not something familiar outside of Dorne.

When the Stark band arrived at sundown there was at first only the sight of Lady Catelyn and her knights. Lady Arya was nowhere to be seen until she peeked out from around the hulking form of a young man who sat his horse terribly. Even Mace, who knew he was no longer as elegant as he wished to be on a horse, could see that the boy had never been taught to fork a horse properly. The girl was straight from the North, he could tell, from her hardy clothing. Her unconcern with the grime of the road was a bit amusing, since her mother fussed as any great lady raised in the South was trained to fuss.

“Welcome, Lady Catelyn, Lady Arya, to Highgarden, I trust you will allow us to see to your every need while you are here,” he said, keeping his face jolly to conceal his utter curiosity at why she seemed to have ridden at breakneck speed from Riverrun on this errand for her son. Lord Renly, or King as the young man was beginning to insist on being called, was not due for another sennight at least. Perhaps she wished to present herself as settled in and rested. The position of relaxation was one that served far better for negotiating than desperation. 

She was neither lucky nor unlucky for allowing Mace and his family to see her now, exhausted and weary.

That sort of determination would come later, and be written in the hand of a maester long after Mace and his sons were dead. It was the Tyrell way, and his parents had drilled it into him for his entire life—Tyrells must be unremarkable the way that flowers were in highest summer, and they must know when the sun and warmth began to wane. A fat green army was better than a thin hardened one—green willow switches hurt more on unruly buttocks, and broke less often.

“You are lucky to catch us all at Highgarden, my lady. This is my wife, Lady Alerie,” he gave his wife time to curtsy properly, “and my children—Willas, Garlan, Loras, and Margaery. Willas, Garlan where is that bread and salt?” His sons responded to his raised voice quickly, Willas holding a skin of wine and Garlan with a tray that bore the required items. The wine was one of Alerie’s favorites, a rich coppery vintage from Old Oak, and she had recommended it for greeting the Starks and Baratheons who were soon to converge on their home. They might have had servants carry on the presentation for them but Mace wanted to create an atmosphere of intimacy and trust between Lady Stark’s band and his own family—she might have been the daughter of Hoster Tully but she’d spent half her life in the North by now.

Northmen were an insular and mistrustful lot. If certain rumors could be believed there was solid basis for a great deal of  wariness on Lady Catelyn’s part. There was time, given her early arrival, to chip away at it before Renly arrived and little touches like this were exactly what he planned on using.

Lady Catelyn partook first, then her daughter, and lastly the men who had come with them. As everyone came forward afterwards, the ladies giving their hands to be kissed, the men giving short bows to Mace and his family, he flicked a finger for a few servants to begin leading the men to their accommodations while Alerie led the ladies inside and to the rooms she’d spent the day preparing for them. Supper would be served in their individual rooms, for it was much too late in the evening to expect everyone to wash for a formal supper.

“Lady Tyrell,” he heard Lady Catelyn say to his wife, her tone effortless and commanding, “might we have a few bolts of cloth sent for on the morrow? My daughter requires appropriate attire for meeting with a king’s brother. There is just enough time to stitch something, and quite enough coin to repay you.”

The little girl at her side blushed crimson and stared resolutely at the ground. Alerie cast a quick appraising look at the child and a warm smile spread across her lips. Margaery, at her side, shared her mother’s warm smile but stayed silent. No one asked why it was of such particular importance that Lady Arya meet Lord Renly, though Mace could tell both his daughter and his wife itched to do just that.

“We may have something of Margaery’s that might be made over to save you the coin, so long as you do not object to a bit of green and gold?” suggested Alerie, her tone honey sweet.

It was interesting to watch the power play between the two women, something Mace counted himself lucky to understand for he’d been raised by his mother to understand both spheres of noble life. A man who did not know when his wife went to battle for him was the highest of idiots and deserved little of her respect or candor.

“We shall see how well it might be fitted,” Lady Catelyn said as she followed Alerie upstairs and away from Mace and his children. 

The woman’s words intrigued him. A king’s brother, indeed, was what Renly was, but that king was dead. In the silence that had emanated from Dragonstone in the wake of Jon Arryn’s death, Renly had begun making moves to put himself up as king. The young man was not the next in line.  That fell to King Joffrey, then on to Prince Tommen, and to Lord Stannis Baratheon after that. What Renly knew regarding the succession had not yet been properly shared with any of his friends in Highgarden, but Mace eagerly awaited seeing what seeds Eddard Stark’s death had planted.

A king’s brother. The question plagued him for most of the night in his dreams.  He remembered being forced to share rations with the gaunt and skeletal men that Lord Stannis had led from within the walls of Storm’s End. Eddard Stark had been firm that Mace make every effort to ensure that Lord Stannis and his men recovered from their starvation at Tyrell hands. Back then he’d bit his tongue harshly, letting the change of the winds bend him and his knees, and he’d not spoken one word to either Lord Eddard or Lord Stannis that war was war—and that he had been aiding his liege lord in subduing a rebel. It had not been the time, for he’d seen the sunken Baratheon eyes over Lord Eddard’s shoulder—alive with hatred like bleeding blue flames.

Lord Stannis had been little older than a boy and back then at least Mother’s wisdom had held true. He’d been a green willow switch, and despite his abuses he’d not broken. The years had hardened him, though, and his pride had been broken when King Robert chose a Stark as Hand of the King above his own blood. No one had heard from him since the death of Jon Arryn, not even after that of Eddard Stark.

Did Lady Catelyn mean to say that Lord Renly was twice-over the brother of a king? Had she convinced her son and her father to throw their support behind Lord Stannis? Was she giving her younger daughter to Renly as proof of the North’s sincere support of King Robert’s brothers? Lady Arya was a slip of a girl, neither a great lady like her mother nor an obedient child if the leggings and tunic she wore were any indication, but still young enough to be molded into the Lady of Storm’s End. Besides, having the third son wed a second daughter was a very respectable match. 

It gave him a terrible headache that didn’t relent even as he slept.

The next morning he shared a private breakfast with his sons.

Willas was his usual pleasant tousled sleepiness, reaching for his lurid green Tyroshi tea to wake himself up, with a full plate of poached pears and ham. It was one of their favorite breakfasts and one of the few things they didn’t bicker about. Garlan had a plateful of ham and fried eggs, covered in so much pepper he might as well be Dornish. Or a full-blooded Redwyne, for the Arbor was only winkingly part of the Reach--Lord Paxter’s dark almond eyes pointing to where his blood hailed from. Loras chose some pears, a few rashers of bacon, and a boiled egg--preferring to eat sparingly until the evening meal. 

The gods had given him much to be grateful for--an intelligent heir, a solid second son, and a third gifted in the field of both battle and pageantry. His daughter also was lovely and sound of mind. Looking at his boys now Mace understood his mother’s adoration of himself and his sisters--all healthy and strong, pretty and of the right sort of birth to put them far ahead in life. 

It also made him hesitant. 

Perhaps he loved them too much but he was not ready to throw them to wolves such as Lady Catelyn Stark or Lord Renly Baratheon. Lord Renly had lofty plans with little ability to execute them without the aid of people like Mace himself. There was a little appeal to supporting the younger of the surviving brothers of King Robert: Lord Renly had plotted to put Margie on the throne as the wife of Robert, making Mace into the grandfather of a future king. That sort of scheming had to be appreciated, but also handled gently. Mace had forbade talk of such an idea under his roof many months ago--there was no way that he could see of ousting Queen Cersei without Lord Tywin’s rage tearing the realm apart.

Now that Lord Renly declared for the throne he presented a new idea to Mace--as Hand of the King Mace might fill up the court with men loyal to Highgarden and in essence rule through the younger copy of King Robert. It was what Lord Arryn had done for many years, and it was time for Highgarden to take pride of place among the Seven Kingdoms once more. Lord Renly was ridiculous, and Mace knew how ridiculous he himself would look for supporting him, but it was tempting. Besides: Lord Renly was unmarried, and Mace had a daughter who was a woman grown.

Mace knew he had a duty to his family to let them grow as mighty as was in his power, and having a daughter crowned as Queen of Westeros certainly fit that aim but the promise of being the grandfather to a king was not firm enough coming from someone like Lord Renly Baratheon. 

Lady Catelyn meanwhile was the daughter of a grasping, wriggling Tully and he fully expected her to throw at least one of her brood of children at his own. She was shrewd, Alerie had shared with him as they prepared for bed the previous evening, and Lady Catelyn had both her son and her father’s support in her endeavor here. Little Lady Arya seemed to have been a sudden addition to their band also, for it seemed fair strange to Alerie that a woman such as Lady Catelyn wouldn’t bring even a riding pack for a highborn girl such as Lady Arya. The girl was also dressed as a boy, in ratted clothing--not a daughter of House Stark, instead looking like she’d escaped into the woods and been later recaptured.

“Father, the flies will get your pears if you don’t eat them,” Loras murmured around a bite of bacon as he salted his boiled egg. Always in a hurry, his youngest boy. 

“Loras what do you think of Lady Catelyn?”

His son chuckled as he chewed with his mouth open, glancing up at Mace for a moment and realizing the question was meant seriously--his chewing continued, but now with lips properly closed. Normally questions of this nature were saved for Willas or sometimes Garlan, but Mace knew that Loras was no simpleton. Young and impulsive but not a _complete_ fool. 

“She’s coming to entice you into calling your banners and supporting her son’s rebellion. Not that the Starks aren’t justified, but it makes little sense to travel so far otherwise. If she can wrangle an alliance with Renly she will have Lord Robb’s blessing to promise the loyalty of the North to the new king.” Everyone chose to ignore the familiarity with which Loras referred to the youngest Baratheon brother. 

“You speak as though Lord Renly is already crowned and anointed Lord of the Seven Kingdoms,” Garlan murmured, filling everyone’s goblets with a light cordial brought to Highgarden from his wife’s cellars.

“Lord Stannis may well have been eaten up by grayscale on Dragonstone for all that anyone has heard from him since Lord Arryn’s death,” Loras said, spearing a pear and plopping it down on his plate with an air of finality. Willas visibly stilled at the comment and Mace hurried to interject so that Loras couldn’t continue down his current path. Over the last decade much had been said of Poor Lord Willas and Poor Lady Shireen, children whose parents weren’t sensible enough to just let them die of their afflictions.

“If Queen Cersei’s children are not the legitimate heirs to the throne, as Lord Renly claims, then Lord Renly is not King Robert’s heir,” Mace said quickly, the fears of the night eating at his guts for the more he thought on it the truer it all seemed. “The middle brother, Lord Stannis, is the rightful heir of King Robert if Joffrey and Tommen are not of Baratheon blood.”

His boys did not speak after that and Mace knew he’d worked it out for true--and that they had as well. Unless they wanted a true rebellion, rather than a squabble of legitimacy, they could not support Lord Renly. Despite his closeness to the Baratheon lad, Loras would know his duty lay in promoting the fortunes of the family. Garlan was a loyal second son of the Reach and would do as his lords bid him. Willas, of all of them, was the truest man grown--having half a lifetime of heartache already under his belt. 

If Mace were as much a fool as he let the other lords of Westeros think he was he would offer up his daughter, Margie, as wife to Lord Stannis. A king could set aside his marriage and Lady Selyse had never birthed a son for the man. He had good cause, and a tight alliance with the Reach rarely went awry. But this was Lord Stannis, and Mace remembered his burning blue eyes.

That man wouldn’t give a barrel of rotten apples to a Tyrell, let alone break up his marriage and shirk his precious duty so as to marry one.

Later in the day he made sure to stumble on Lady Catelyn as she sat out in the gardens watching her daughter play with some of Willas’ hounds. The dogs were bred for speed, racing and prancing around Lady Arya who giggled and guffawed with delight. The child’s thoughts seemed to be far from her mother, who sat with a wistful look on her face as she neglected her sewing. 

Well, her deconstruction of one of Margie’s old gowns. The bodice and under skirts were a fetching lemon yellow, and a surcote of dark emerald green sat folded up in a basket next to Lady Catelyn. Flecks of gold sparkled up from both fabrics, and Mace let a smile touch his lips as he heavily sat down next to his guest. The dress had been from the nameday feast his daughter had celebrated shortly after she’d had her first bleeding, and Alerie had worked late into the night for many weeks to ensure that it was fit for their beautiful daughter. Now it would make Lady Arya Stark decent to meet Lord Renly. 

“I thank you, Lord Mace, for opening your home to us,” Lady Catelyn said, turning back to her work of taking in the gown so it would sit properly on Lady Arya’s tiny frame. 

“I only hope Lord Stark would have done the same for my Alerie and Margaery, had the situation been reversed,” Mace chose as his response. It was supportive, but noncommittal. His companion was silent for a long moment, and a tiny sniffle preceded her response. 

“My husband was not only a dutiful man but an honorable one. He would have offered bread and salt and swords had your wife and daughter arrived at his doorstep thusly. His sons are of the same cloth,” she smiled down at the yellow fabric in her hands, turning it this way and that so the golden threads sparkled in the sunlight, “though they were for the most part dyed like Tullys. Arya is the only one aside from--Arya is the only one that shares the Stark look.” Mace took care to note her stumble, wondering what tragedy she hid with her recovery. 

“It is admirable that your son has so quickly taken up the mantle of his father,” he said instead of questioning her. She would trust him sooner if he trod gently now rather than rushing ahead. 

“Robb knows where his duty lies, and that is with the rightful King of Westeros,” Lady Catelyn said, her tone confident. She did not speak of Joffrey Baratheon, of that he was sure. Now to find out which of King Robert’s brothers she referred to, hopefully before Lord Renly arrived so that Mace and his family had time to make their own choices. 

Mace turned his attention to where Lady Arya was wrestling with the hounds and puppies that Willas had turned loose for her. The animals and the girl seemed to love one another instantly and he smirked a little that his son would probably have to give away one or more of the dogs to their guest. A puppy would be a fitting parting gift to the Starks, he mused, when all this was said and done. Something to grow alongside them and guard their family.

“The rightful king,” Mace murmured to himself, having left Lady Catelyn’s statement alone too long to properly address her, “there seem to be several to choose from.”

Lady Catelyn drew in a short breath, pausing for a long moment and letting it out, before taking a deeper breath that shook just slightly. 

“You’ve heard the rumors, no doubt, of what happened to my husband. A pair of Stark men made it out of King’s Landing alive, bearing news that my husband did his duty to the realm and declared that Queen Cersei’s children are bastards. That Joffrey and his brother are not the heirs of House Baratheon, but rather Lord Stannis ought to sit the Iron Throne as King Robert’s heir. Robb moves to support Lord Stannis as king.”

“And you, my lady?”

“I come to make peace between the brothers, and," another shaking breath taken in, "secure the Reach. I know that House Tyrell’s gamble did not pay off the last time the realm went to war. My son thinks to extend a hand that wasn’t on offer before.”

By the Crone he hated Tullys. Everything was family and marriage and schemes--their families were far too alike for a Tyrell to ever successfully unite with a Tully. Lady Catelyn’s children were half-Stark though, and perhaps just enough of that blasted stiff honor had been bred into them that this might work out. A hand that wasn’t on offer before. Lord Eddard had wed his brother’s betrothed, and his younger brother Lord Benjen had been far too young to marry off at the time. 

Margie had been deprived of being queen, though she had only been a babe in arms when Tywin Lannister had robbed her of her birthright. When the maesters had announced that Alerie had birthed a daughter he had been overjoyed--there was no better candidate for tiny Prince Aegon’s future bride, and that had been a great part of his motivation in supporting King Aerys for as long as he did. He’d dreamed that his daughter would be Queen of Westeros--but that was all gone now and he knew it if he were only brave enough to admit it to himself.

Lord Stannis wouldn’t wed her, even if he were free to, and there was no guarantee that Lord Renly would play the willing pawn. Lady Catelyn’s son on the other hand was obedient to his mother, trusting of his father, and led the North by both honor and right. 

“What assurance would Lord Stark take of Tyrell loyalty?” Tullys and Tyrells were spoken of as turncloaks by some even today. Before he turned his back on men like Tywin Lannister he would hear the terms. Moreover Mace would take his time to consider those terms before selling off his only daughter to live in a cold castle with this stern Tully for a goodmother. 

Here Lady Catelyn stayed silent and eventually Mace decided to play his hand a little more broadly, his tone carefully neutral and pleasant as he spoke. 

“Before your husband first rode to war he knelt in a sept and gave himself in marriage. I wonder if your son intends to do the same, for similar reasons. Lord Robb is of an age with my Lady Margaery, is he not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Thank you for reading!!!


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